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I'm currently in the planning phase of a home brew campaign. I'd really like to challenge my players where it counts: their moral compass. (I even have a paladin to play with)
Therefore, here I am. I'd love to hear about all those times your GM presented a situation that gave you pause. Those situations where you really had to take stock of your character's moral fortitude. Alternatively, as a GM, what were your most morally harrowing situations for your parties. The ones where everyone at the table either stares at you blankly as they consider the ramifications or stare at their shoes while they take stock of themselves.
Or, honestly, any decently good situations will do. I just need some help in brainstorming.
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I once accidentally painted my group into a corner where their only option was small scale genocide.
In the middle of a raid on a town or just a general fight, split the party enough so that one can't get to the other within a round, city streets work perfect for this because then you can put one party member out of line of sight from another, the paladin would be perfect to single out in this instance, once he alone can defend bystanders from the raiders have children, a brother and sister, get separated from one another and raiders moving to slaughter both, he has enough time to save one but not both. Low level parties are a must for this, before raise from the dead spells are attainable. Which will he choose to save?
Another is the party captures a corrupt official, he willingly surrenders but the party knows he has contacts and will get off from the charges against him if they bring him in, will they kill an unarmed man that is surrendering to them, or bring him in to trial andwatch him slip away from justice?
A big plot point in the game I am currently running came to a head when the players had to make a choice.
From the beginning of the game they had been chasing after this high level Cleric of Death, he was in the process of trying to revive a hugely powerful Lich, I called and Arch-Lich. At the same time demons kept popping up in the most awkward times and the party had to defeat them to seal rifts that were being opened.
Turns out that this Cleric was trying to raise the Arch-Lich because there was a Demon-Lord trying to enter into their realm through a largescale rift. And only that Lich was strong enough to destroy it.
The Arch-Lich was moments away from being raised and the party had to choose, let this Arch-Lich get raised and see 150,000 people in the city die in an instant- but the Demon Lord will be stopped- or do they stop the Cleric and find another way to defeat the Demon-Lord?
I tried to frame it in such a way that this evil Cleric really believed he was doing the right thing, he thought the sacrifice of 150,000 people was worth it to save the world.
Its been a fun campaign, and I was prepared for either choice- I try not to force them into a single option.
I once accidentally painted my group into a corner where their only option was small scale genocide.
I hate to derail the thread but I desperately want to hear that story.
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I once accidentally painted my group into a corner where their only option was small scale genocide.I hate to derail the thread but I desperately want to hear that story.
Let's see if I can recount this properly.
The party was sent through a portal that they couldn't go back through. The gate sent them to a small cavern where in lived a race that was a mixture of elf and goblin. Well the cavern was magically sealed so that no one could get out. This entrance to this cavern had been sealed long ago by elven magic and the souls of certain dead babies kept the seal going and it would only open when the ones who had caused their "pre birth" death were killed permanently.
The party arrives and end up getting on the leaders of this little community's bad side. They sneak around killing these goblin-elves as they have to. At one point they end up surprise fire bombing the heck out of the males in their chamber. Anyway they find out from the souls of the dead in the magical seal that the leaders were a bad sort who did some terrible things and were sealed in the cavern long ago with the idea that they would eventually die. However they enacted a ritual that would allow them to return by begetting themselves over and over again. Essentially if they died they would take over the body of any unborn child they had blood ties to and the closest one fathered was usually first.
So the party ended up killing the males. Luckily they managed to convince some of the leaders to die and let go, but the ring leader of this little cadre was elsewhere and wouldn't. They managed to find the ring leader and kill him the first time, that left the females and the babies. The females to defend their home and their children fell to the party's might. That left the babies. Eventually they were down to one baby which gave them an evil glare, so they took to the sealed exit and killed him there where they saw his soul get tortured and torn by the souls of all of their children they had killed through out the centuries.
After a couple rounds of "Dude!" from the players each of the party took time to pray and weep at a nearby shrine. Even the party wizard, cynical and dismissive of the gods on most days felt the need to go to the shrine and clean himself.
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I like scenarios where players/groups have to choose between expedience and "doing the right thing". A couple of examples.
-- Whether to torture a prisoner to gain information useful to the party (but not necessary to save lives or some other arguably "higher purpose" - not that I would argue that, but I know many who would, some of them pretty reasonable human beings)
-- Whether to rescue innocent civilians even if it means letting the BBEG get away
-- Whether to risk the lives of others to minimize party risks
What I dislike as a player and don't do as a GM is force parties into situations in which there is no morally right or even acceptable thing to do. Some GMs (and perhaps their players) seem to delight in that, and consider it a more "gritty" or "realistic" style of campaign.
More power to them if they are all happy doing it that way, although I suspect those GMs enjoy this style more than their players. Doesn't appeal to me in the least. I deal with gritty reality and choices between shades of gray in my life and work every day. When I'm gaming I want to escape from that and be able to be heroic. I want to slay the dragon and rescue the princess, and not be forced to make morally questionable choices to do so. Maybe that type of scenario has been done to death, and others are more jaded than I am, but after 30+ years of gaming it hasn't gotten old to me.
Like James T. Kirk, I don't believe in no-win situations.
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Once, we were playing samurai, we found out that the nephew of the Daimyo was actually not really related by blood, because her mother had an affair and her husband didn´t know that and always proudly said what a strong healthy child he has. So we could lie and say all is well and let some shmocks son get a chance at the daimyoship or we could kill him and say why and bring shame to the daimyo. In the end we opted for plan C. One killed the boy, comitted suicide, his best friend took the head of booth child and friend to the daimyo and then requested permission for suicide for not being able to stop the lunatic. The mother of the little boy was already dead so no reason to pay her a visit. In the end 2 people dead by suicide and the rest of the party went to the villa of the shmock killed everyone inside and made a nice bonfire.
I like scenarios where players/groups have to choose between expedience and "doing the right thing". A couple of examples.
-- Whether to torture a prisoner to gain information useful to the party (but not necessary to save lives or some other arguably "higher purpose" - not that I would argue that, but I know many who would, some of them pretty reasonable human beings)
-- Whether to rescue innocent civilians even if it means letting the BBEG get away
-- Whether to risk the lives of others to minimize party risksWhat I dislike as a player and don't do as a GM is force parties into situations in which there is no morally right or even acceptable thing to do. Some GMs (and perhaps their players) seem to delight in that, and consider it a more "gritty" or "realistic" style of campaign.
More power to them if they are all happy doing it that way, although I suspect those GMs enjoy this style more than their players. Doesn't appeal to me in the least. I deal with gritty reality and choices between shades of gray in my life and work every day. When I'm gaming I want to escape from that and be able to be heroic. I want to slay the dragon and rescue the princess, and not be forced to make morally questionable choices to do so. Maybe that type of scenario has been done to death, and others are more jaded than I am, but after 30+ years of gaming it hasn't gotten old to me.
Like James T. Kirk, I don't believe in no-win situations.
I agree with you there, that kind of style isn't very fun for me either.
And from what I've seen and heard, it's usually a tyrant DM who doesn't bother asking the players if they want to play like that. Even worse if there is a Paladin in the group, since the DM will probably try and make him fall on each and every turn. Actually, the DM I usually have to complain about made a campaign setting inspired by Game of Thrones, which didn't appeal to me at all. I bet he knew that when he tried not to mention what was the inspiration for this "low fantasy, somewhat gritty" setting. He knows I find his favourite series (be it manga, anime, TV series or books) boring because they are all cynical and/or grimdark. However, I am willing to make some things in Pathfinder and D&D be more of a moral shade of grey, but that's on a case-by-case basis.
I am probably not contributing, but I know that in this one movie (won't say for spoilers...) there is a part where a young boy is playing both sides, but trying to have the good guys win. It eventually is revealed, and he is seen hanging dead from a electric pole. Not sure if it would do anything, but I choked seeing that scene. Made more tragic by his older sister seeing this, and then kind of going insane over it.
Needless to say... Dang war, you scary.
A completely innocent child is kidnapped to the astral plane and an evil outsider infects here with a horrible, super-contaigious disease that only she is immune to. She is at present lost in the astral plane, but it is only a matter of time before she finds her way to a portal that will take her back to the prime material plane, and more specifically a densely populated trading port from which the disease will spread literally everywhere soon after. The party finds this out when they come into contact with the child's "silver cord" on the prime material plane -- if they cut the cord, the kid dies... but the world is safe from the disease. If they don't cut the cord, the world dies -- but the kid lives. If you want a middle option, the party can go to the girl and see if she can be cured on the astral plane -- but that means becoming exposed to the disease. And it's a special magical/curse/doomsday disease so the standard spells might not be effective.
But Marthian... was he helping because he liked chocolate? heh-heh-heh.
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I like scenarios where players/groups have to choose between expedience and "doing the right thing". A couple of examples.
-- Whether to torture a prisoner to gain information useful to the party (but not necessary to save lives or some other arguably "higher purpose" - not that I would argue that, but I know many who would, some of them pretty reasonable human beings)
-- Whether to rescue innocent civilians even if it means letting the BBEG get away
-- Whether to risk the lives of others to minimize party risks
-- Heroes hiding in the shadows overlooking a powerful trio of serpentfolk and their masses of dominated slaves. Three of the slaves are called forward to be placidly devoured alive, which would render the serpentfolk nearly helpless for more than a brief moment. The heroes could wait until the three slaves are eaten or they can hurry up and try to save them, facing off against powerful foes with no handicaps.
Another moral quandary:
Make them choose between saving some innocent people, and a MUSEUM. It's impossible to get the blood off of your hands resigning a truly innocent people to their fate -- but if they go to save the innocent person, the bad guys plan to raid, loot, burn, and blow-up a spectacular ancient building full of priceless art and national treasures? And no matter what they choose, people are going to hate them. "MY DAUGHTER WAS MURDERED -- CRYING FOR *YOU* TO SAVE HER -- and you chose ROCKS AND METAL over her! May you look to rocks and metal when your hour comes! Your HEARTS are made of rocks and metal! Boo-hoo-hoo!" (crowd spits and yells)
Or
"You picked a dozen or so mundane and useless peons as more precious than the greatest arts and inspirations of our age?! The soul of our whole COUNTRY lies in ruins, lost FOREVER because you sought to put your twisted disproportionate values over our national heritage?! OR WHAT'S LEFT OF IT!?!? SPIT! PTOO!" (crowd spits and yells)
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I once ran a campaign where the premise was that power comes at a cost of your humanity. To face the hideous otherworldly invaders, the heroes had to become like them. Gaining this power was optional, but to refuse it was to remain weak.
The reception was... mixed.
A completely innocent child is kidnapped to the astral plane and an evil outsider infects here with a horrible, super-contaigious disease that only she is immune to. She is at present lost in the astral plane, but it is only a matter of time before she finds her way to a portal that will take her back to the prime material plane, and more specifically a densely populated trading port from which the disease will spread literally everywhere soon after. The party finds this out when they come into contact with the child's "silver cord" on the prime material plane -- if they cut the cord, the kid dies... but the world is safe from the disease. If they don't cut the cord, the world dies -- but the kid lives. If you want a middle option, the party can go to the girl and see if she can be cured on the astral plane -- but that means becoming exposed to the disease. And it's a special magical/curse/doomsday disease so the standard spells might not be effective.
Volunteer to go alone with a reasonable amount of resources to deal with disease. Try to come up with a way to communicate with comrades back on the material. If we have planar travel and communications available, we milk it for all the possibilities we can, calling in every favor we can manage.
If there is no way to cure her, despite all of the options across the planes, at the very least she will not go alone. And hopefully, if communication is possible, the perpetrator of this architect of this atrocity will be found and stopped.
Or:
When they do something bad to a bad guy (steal his stuff and run, something else that they figure will be ok because they'll be gone before sunrise) -- they have to deal with the consequences of him going on a witch-hunt to find the culprits... THEM.
They can run with their loot and hope to forget the bad guy, but the bad guy won't forget them. Stories of torture, his grabbing the wrong party of adventurers and executing them (again and again) is reported in the news -- the flogging of innocent peasants as "sympathizers" who allowed the party to escape... they thought they had only a short-term smash and grab on their hands, now if they want to prevent a world of innocent blood on their hands they have to turn around and assassinate, depose, or start a civil war to remove the bad guy. ho-ho-ho.
Or
Give each person in the party a tower of impressive and convincing hair-peices. Left alone, nobody can guess they are fake, but the fact that the hair is piled so high is unwieldy and kind of ridiculous. The party members can remove the hair pieces, but they look just as convincing lying on the ground as they do on the player's heads... causing a great deal of confusion for people who are CERTAIN folks are buried up to their foreheads in cement (when it is actually just an extremely convincing hair-peice that's been dropped on the floor.)
That, and the subject of hair-peices is embarrassing. Not just for the players, but for NPCs with hair-peices that are not NEARLY as impressive or convincing as the characters.
What to do?
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Another moral quandary:
Make them choose between saving some innocent people, and a MUSEUM. It's impossible to get the blood off of your hands resigning a truly innocent people to their fate -- but if they go to save the innocent person, the bad guys plan to raid, loot, burn, and blow-up a spectacular ancient building full of priceless art and national treasures? And no matter what they choose, people are going to hate them. "MY DAUGHTER WAS MURDERED -- CRYING FOR *YOU* TO SAVE HER -- and you chose ROCKS AND METAL over her! May you look to rocks and metal when your hour comes! Your HEARTS are made of rocks and metal! Boo-hoo-hoo!" (crowd spits and yells)
Or
"You picked a dozen or so mundane and useless peons as more precious than the greatest arts and inspirations of our age?! The soul of our whole COUNTRY lies in ruins, lost FOREVER because you sought to put your twisted disproportionate values over our national heritage?! OR WHAT'S LEFT OF IT!?!? SPIT! PTOO!" (crowd spits and yells)
Hey, @#$% you buddy! Those people are the soul of your country! Whatever was important about those rocks and paper lives in them! You throw their lives away for things...whatever that stuff in that museum represented isn't worth a damn if that's what it drives you to do!
What?
WHAT?!
*****
It really is an issue though, Auskrem -- in a month or two everyone the party saved in that snap-decision could be dead from a plauge, or a fire, or famine... or they are just a bunch of doubtlessly expendable peasants. Everything in the museum is irreplaceable, timeless, and an indispensable part of the nations heritage and depending on how divine or arcanely magical -- some of it might have been exceedingly important for a variety of other reasons. In a mundane world headbutting that nobleman makes a lot more sense... even if this quandry is still tough in a mundane world. When you add how extremely magical the exhibits are to how beautiful and important they are -- whoa, nelly. it's a big deal, and you don't have to be a stuffy noble to say so.
It really is an issue though, Auskrem -- in a month or two everyone the party saved in that snap-decision could be dead from a plauge, or a fire, or famine... or they are just a bunch of doubtlessly expendable peasants. Everything in the museum is irreplaceable, timeless, and an indispensable part of the nations heritage and depending on how divine or arcanely magical -- some of it might have been exceedingly important for a variety of other reasons. In a mundane world headbutting that nobleman makes a lot more sense... even if this quandry is still tough in a mundane world. When you add how extremely magical the exhibits are to how beautiful and important they are -- whoa, nelly. it's a big deal, and you don't have to be a stuffy noble to say so.
With that attitude, why even try to save anyone if they're just all going to die in the end? Heroes would never try to save anyone because hell, they're just going to get themselves into that situation again and die. Or die from something natural, like the Black Plague.
That's not really the thinking of a good guy.
It really is an issue though, Auskrem -- in a month or two everyone the party saved in that snap-decision could be dead from a plague, or a fire, or famine... or they are just a bunch of doubtlessly expendable peasants. Everything in the museum is irreplaceable, timeless, and an indispensable part of the nations heritage and depending on how divine or arcanely magical -- some of it might have been exceedingly important for a variety of other reasons. In a mundane world headbutting that nobleman makes a lot more sense... even if this quandry is still tough in a mundane world. When you add how extremely magical the exhibits are to how beautiful and important they are -- whoa, nelly. it's a big deal, and you don't have to be a stuffy noble to say so.
The bolded part sounds like something said by a Lawful Evil Aristocrat.
I'd kick his face in for placing so little value on a person's life, and I doubt that would be a problem even if I was a Paladin.
Also, they'd be magical items of very poor quality if a mundane fire was able to destroy them. Were they crafted by goblins or what?
It really is an issue though, Auskrem -- in a month or two everyone the party saved in that snap-decision could be dead from a plauge, or a fire, or famine... or they are just a bunch of doubtlessly expendable peasants. Everything in the museum is irreplaceable, timeless, and an indispensable part of the nations heritage and depending on how divine or arcanely magical -- some of it might have been exceedingly important for a variety of other reasons. In a mundane world headbutting that nobleman makes a lot more sense... even if this quandry is still tough in a mundane world. When you add how extremely magical the exhibits are to how beautiful and important they are -- whoa, nelly. it's a big deal, and you don't have to be a stuffy noble to say so.
They've got a fighting chance. That's more than they would have had if they were just left to die.
The future ain't written. And I don't make a distinction "important" folks and the peasants whose lives they don't seem to value much.
In fact that attitude can also be applied to the museum. Why bother saving it? I mean, earthquakes and tornadoes happen. They'll probably destroy that museum eventually. A tsunami could wreck it. Hell, if that group of people tried to blow up the museum, I'm sure they'll be copy cats to repeat it. Or some wizard being a douche decides "F$@& it, I want to watch that museum burn."
Why even bother saving the day when it's only going to become unsaved again?
Why bother being adventurers when no matter what we do, nothing gets fixed.
Why bother?
And that is the issue with no-win, grimdark situations. After awhile, why bother? There's a reason why main characters of such genres have that tired, cynical "I'm tired of this s&#%" personality.
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Like James T. Kirk, I don't believe in no-win situations.
I'd favorite this multiple times if I could.
I don't mind failing a scenario in a game, or suffering a TPK or whatever (too much, anyway!), but I absolutely abhor a no-win scenario, where the odds are so stacked against the players that they literally can't win. I had a DM back in college who loved 'zombie apocalypse' scenarios, and that sort of futile 'nothing you do works' / crapsack world mindset occasionally bled over into more traditional games he would run, to my great frustration.
There are some tropes you see in television, film, and literature that simply do not work well in RPGs with the average player. Things like deus ex machina and no win situations are two big offenders in this category.
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Anyways... my own recent example is this.
Have the players in a more urban setting and one of them stopped an assassin from killing a foreign diplomat and business man. He's now hired that PC to protect him for the next two days. What they'll come to find out is, this assassin was hired by a noble from that diplomat's country. This noble wants the business man dead because he unwittingly sold that noble's daughter into slavery (slavery isn't illegal in the city, but kidnapping is). When this is brought to light after multiple attempts on his and the PCs life, they now have a choice. Protect the business man or let the assassin do her work.... OR track the daughter and save her, possibly sparing the business man and earning the respect of the assassin and her guild.
That's a good one Od.
A completely innocent child is kidnapped to the astral plane and an evil outsider infects here with a horrible, super-contaigious disease that only she is immune to. She is at present lost in the astral plane, but it is only a matter of time before she finds her way to a portal that will take her back to the prime material plane, and more specifically a densely populated trading port from which the disease will spread literally everywhere soon after. The party finds this out when they come into contact with the child's "silver cord" on the prime material plane -- if they cut the cord, the kid dies... but the world is safe from the disease. If they don't cut the cord, the world dies -- but the kid lives. If you want a middle option, the party can go to the girl and see if she can be cured on the astral plane -- but that means becoming exposed to the disease. And it's a special magical/curse/doomsday disease so the standard spells might not be effective.
Snip.
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A simple but excellent one I once read on these very boards involved an evil wizard kidnapping a group of innocents (say, all the children from a town somewhere). After doing so, the wizard transforms them into horrible, but still living, monsters, and sends to terrorize or conquer their own (or some other) village. The quandary arises when the PCs, called in to help save the town, discover that the creatures they are fighting are actually transformed children. This may be suitably conveyed by, for example, having the monsters change back into child form after death.
They just need to find a way to reverse the effect.
Also, a Paladin should not be forced to kill children. That's just wrong.
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Beware the no-win situation. It's mathematically and subjectively the same as the can-only-lose situation.
If you're going to give the player time to find the Kirk option, or you're going to allow that whatever they try first/second/third IS retroactively the Kirk option, AND you know that they will keep trying, that can be great drama, great gaming. But if the player's morale fails, it's just a broken situation.
But to stay on-topic:
The Seat of Thuer is the tomb of an ancient blooddruid/barbarian warlord, wherein supposedly lies (maguffin). The door into the very first room of the place has a lock that requires blood to open. (Except our locksmith has +13 DD, but the archer just cuts his own hand to open the door... sigh.) Once inside, carvings on the walls make clear the cost to progress further, runes in old Druidic read,
Sleep safe, from fire, from storm, from flood
Til axe again runs red with blood
And hey look, the room is shaped like an axe head.
And you repeat and escalate the theme. The next door wants skulls put into a balance. Fresh skulls. The door after that has a depression the shape of a person...
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The game I run has some pretty strong parallels with the "Walking Dead" TV show and I guess the comics, although I have never read the comics. It wasn't intentional.
The key that is making it work is the characters are actually making a difference. Maybe only in a small part of the world, but they are making a difference. They have actually "secured" a small town and some area around it. They have been collecting refugee's and bringing them to this "safe" area.
It's only really worked because my players understand that there are such things as unwinnable fights and sometimes you just gotta run away.
Along the way they have had to make some tough choices on what they were willing to do to survive. There have been quite a few "choose the lesser evil" situations. You know, things like "You cannot save everyone so pick the ones you will save" and those sort of situations. It sucks as players but it makes the things you can accomplish feel more rewarding.
I about fell out of my chair when I saw the "tag line" for this season's Walking dead was "Fight the dead, fear the living". They have really fallen into that way of thinking to some extent.
As my players expand their secure area they are runnign into other groups of survivors and they run the gambit on the type of people they are encountering. Never a dull moment =)
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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The "Lone Survivor" scenario: party is operating in an area in which there is a nearby huge force of bad guys (or a single nigh-unbeatable boss like Smaug). If they are discovered, their mission will fail and they will have to fight overwhelming odds merely to survive. Someone of indeterminate allegiances notices them. Will they silence this possibly innocent person to protect themselves and their mission, or will they let them go and risk failure and death? Just tying them up shouldn't be an easy out--maybe they are in a desperate hurry and don't have time to stop to take prisoners.
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Moral quandaries don't always have to take the form of an impossible choice between two bad outcomes. They can be more complex and open-ended. I'm going to toot my own horn on this one, but The Tomb of Haggemoth contains a number of moral and ethical choices woven into the adventure without rubbing the party's face in it, and not all of them are grim. (Some are actually fun!)
Basically, in each of the chapters of this adventure path there are multiple routes to solving the party's given task. Over and over the party is given the option to get involved in other people's problems in order to save lives and help the unfortunate, but none of that is really necessary to complete their task. They can succeed through stealth and subterfuge without getting involved, negotiation and diplomacy that keeps them studiously neutral or complicit, or then can be stereotypical "Big Damn Heroes"(TM). This is all a set-up for the final challenge of the adventure, which involves a major choice about whether to sacrifice a lot of their work in order to help somebody who may or may not deserve it.
Part of the fun for me as a GM is putting the party in difficult positions and seeing what they do. I try not to railroad, and I try to always be open to the "third way". If my players can figure out a plausible way to win the "no-win scenario", I count that as a successful game, and I try to reward them for making hard decisions rather than punishing them.
i once had a game and there was going to be a paladin who promised the head of his order to retrieve a book that contained a great amount of information but the party was going to stop him because the last time the book was used the information killed thousands of people.
and then heres my thoughts on grimdark campaigns, such as midnight or zombie apoc. as to not derail the thread.
And that is the issue with no-win, grimdark situations. After awhile, why bother? There's a reason why main characters of such genres have that tired, cynical "I'm tired of this s!!#" personality.
Wow, that is exactly how I feel about my job these days. Probably why I Pathfinder.
There's a lot of stuff I'm snipping and saving for later here in this thread. I do enjoy are consequences to actions. It's one thing for grimdark BS, it's another when it's just that the PC's can't figure out a way on there own. Sometimes that just comes from us GM's not be clear enough in our descriptions. Countless times the PC's have looked at me after I had them make an Intelligence check only to say "we can do that?"
It's always good to ask yourself how YOU would handle something before throwing it at your players and assuming they'll figure it out. Just sayin'
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Sometimes it can be smaller too:
The PCs have witnessed a massacre, although they save many people there are also dozens dead.
They forge ahead of the survivors (like, a few days ahead) and arrive in the village when there is a harvest festival and a wedding.
Do they spoile the day, or wait and keep people in ignorance?
I don't believe a choice between "Killing an innocent" and "Failing the mission" is a good moral conundrum. If a GM uses it in game it's simply a guilt trip. The best moral decisions I've seen are in the first Dragon Age game.
* The dwarven citadel is beset by monsters, and you are asked to find an anvil that can create more of the ancient golems that protect the city. During the quest you discover that each golem is powered by the imprisoned soul of a dwarf; brainwashed and controlled by power rods. Last time the anvil was used, dwarves were conscripted by force to be killed and turned into golems. Do you destroy it, securing the aid of the dwarven government and safety for the dwarven city or do you destroy it and prevent more dwarves from being basically enslaved and fleshwarped?
* The infant son of a lord is possessed by a demon. You can pretty easily kill the boy, or you can use dark ("blood" in the game) magics to fight the demon in a dream-realm. But that spell will require a blood sacrifice. The boy's mother offers herself as sacrifice, since the whole thing was basically her fault. But hey, if you manage to meet the demon it offers to teach you dark magics for his life.
And many others... Seriously, play the game, it's awesome.
I like scenarios where players/groups have to choose between expedience and "doing the right thing". A couple of examples.
-- Whether to torture a prisoner to gain information useful to the party (but not necessary to save lives or some other arguably "higher purpose" - not that I would argue that, but I know many who would, some of them pretty reasonable human beings)
-- Whether to rescue innocent civilians even if it means letting the BBEG get away
-- Whether to risk the lives of others to minimize party risksWhat I dislike as a player and don't do as a GM is force parties into situations in which there is no morally right or even acceptable thing to do. Some GMs (and perhaps their players) seem to delight in that, and consider it a more "gritty" or "realistic" style of campaign.
More power to them if they are all happy doing it that way, although I suspect those GMs enjoy this style more than their players. Doesn't appeal to me in the least. I deal with gritty reality and choices between shades of gray in my life and work every day. When I'm gaming I want to escape from that and be able to be heroic. I want to slay the dragon and rescue the princess, and not be forced to make morally questionable choices to do so. Maybe that type of scenario has been done to death, and others are more jaded than I am, but after 30+ years of gaming it hasn't gotten old to me.
Like James T. Kirk, I don't believe in no-win situations.
However, you do realize you just described a bevy of "no win" situations for the person being tortured, the civilians being sacrificed(or the first people the BBEG encounter when he's in a bad mood), and the lives lost of either party members or non-party members. I think it would be wiser to say you don't like the cliches you don't like and you do like the cliches you do like.
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One from an awesome campaign a long time ago.
At the very first encounter we had as a 1st-level party, we were offered incredible powers with only very little drawbacks by an unknown god-like power.
My PC (a smith) chose the power to create magic items. He was able to create any and every magic item as long as the proper tools and materials were made available. However he could not refuse to fulfill any customer's order as long as the trade was fair.
When the Lich came in the cave where we had taken refuge from a nasty snowstorm and asked my smith to create a chain that would move on its own as ordered, my PC just did as asked. Much to the dismay of the crippled Paladin we had just saved from an avalanche.
Of course, this came to bite us in the end when said Lich used the chain to ensnare a powerful Cambion Archmage and push him to utter his half of the World-destructing incantation.
Another, also from long ago. In a Call of Chtulhu adventure, we confronted and vanquished alien parasites who fed on a retirement's house's clients, causing the death of several of them. When the police arrived, we had a choice between blaming the missing manager of the house (who had been abducted and presumably killed during the adventure) and telling the truth (and ending in an asylum, to be treated as delirious inmates).
More recently, my RotRL Ranger woke up after a forgotten night of hard partying only to realize that, among other things, he got married with the daughter of a powerful, rich and mysterious noble and had sex with her during the ceremony to Urgathoa.
A devout follower of Erastil, he turned to his faith for advice and went to ask Old Deadeye's Archpriest in the city. The old priest told him that he could back out of the vows (taken before an unholy deity's altar while under the influence of mind-altering substances) unless there was a child on the way. In which case his clear duty was to save the child from Urgathoa's influence and maybe the mother too if at all possible.
Some divination spells later, my Ranger asked Erastil's priest to negotiate the wedding contract for him.
Interesting, though Call of Cthulhu is usually a game full of no-win situations from what I've heard.
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However, you do realize you just described a bevy of "no win" situations for the person being tortured, the civilians being sacrificed(or the first people the BBEG encounter when he's in a bad mood), and the lives lost of either party members or non-party members. I think it would be wiser to say you don't like the cliches you don't like and you do like the cliches you do like.I like scenarios where players/groups have to choose between expedience and "doing the right thing". A couple of examples.
-- Whether to torture a prisoner to gain information useful to the party (but not necessary to save lives or some other arguably "higher purpose" - not that I would argue that, but I know many who would, some of them pretty reasonable human beings)
-- Whether to rescue innocent civilians even if it means letting the BBEG get away
-- Whether to risk the lives of others to minimize party risksWhat I dislike as a player and don't do as a GM is force parties into situations in which there is no morally right or even acceptable thing to do. Some GMs (and perhaps their players) seem to delight in that, and consider it a more "gritty" or "realistic" style of campaign.
More power to them if they are all happy doing it that way, although I suspect those GMs enjoy this style more than their players. Doesn't appeal to me in the least. I deal with gritty reality and choices between shades of gray in my life and work every day. When I'm gaming I want to escape from that and be able to be heroic. I want to slay the dragon and rescue the princess, and not be forced to make morally questionable choices to do so. Maybe that type of scenario has been done to death, and others are more jaded than I am, but after 30+ years of gaming it hasn't gotten old to me.
Like James T. Kirk, I don't believe in no-win situations.
Not really sure what you are getting at, here. Perhaps you could expand on it or clarify.
Obviously, when I was talking about "no-win" situations, i was talking from the perspective of the players, not NPCs. Frankly, I don't really worry about no-win situations for NPCs because, well, they are NPCs - created by the GM solely for the purpose of advancing the plot of the game and giving the players something to roleplay with.
I don't think what I'm talking about is favorite or non-favorite cliches. I have no problem with cliches, per se. What I dislike, and it is just a personal preference, but one I believe is shared by many, is games designed to place players in untenable situations in which all the choices are morally bad, and there is no way to "win" without your character betraying his own moral code. Just not fun for me. Nor do I enjoy games where the PCs have virtually no chance of success. Paranoia and Call of Cthulhu aren't my cup of tea, for example. If they are for you, by all means find a like-minded group and go for it.